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When I think of our large family and how mealtimes should be, I envision us sitting around a large table, with the food sitting in the middle, and each person waiting patiently before prayer is said and then we begin by each grabbing a dish and passing it to the next.  Everything is uniform and neat, no chaos, and you can actually carry on a conversation at the table.

But that is NOT a reality in our household and I don’t think we ever will have that.

For one problem in large families is that there sometimes are not enough seats for everyone.  Especially if you have an XL family.  It might be impossible to find a table that fits everyone.  You do what works.  If you have to set up folding chairs or have some sit around the kitchen counter, you do what you have to do.  I know of one family that purchased plastic picnic tables to use as tables for their large family.  Others use tv trays around the couch.  You gotta do whatever works.

I remember going shopping for tables and loving the nice long ones with perfectly smooth tops and envisioned how I “thought” it would look in our house.  Well then reality set in and I knew I would spend my time constantly getting after children for playing too roughly on it.  So I settled for a “worn” weathered look tabletop.  I am very grateful that I did that.  After having ours for 2 years, it definitely has some “real-scrapes and weatheredness” that can only come from 10 children playing roughly on it.  I think my children could go in business by turning perfectly good furniture into that weathered and worn look.  Hmmmm that could be a good business–smile.

Back to meal time.  It seems that it sometimes takes me hours to prepare a nice meal for my family, only to find that they barely sit down for 15-20 minutes to enjoy it!!!  I used to take lots of time and try and prepare that perfect looking meal, then I realized that they just eat and go on.  I learned to be less perfected and make quick and easy meals.  If I had to make a large meal, I would make enough so that we could eat it the next day.  If I was going to go to all that work, at least let me have the next day off–smile.

I really enjoyed this last month taking 2 days and preparing a bunch of freezer meals.  That helped hugely to give me more time in my day.  I know I will continue doing that, especially throughout the warmer months.  I want to spend less time in the kitchen and more time outdoors with my children.  I will probably look for more crockpot style dinners, to help cut back on using the oven.

If I could give any advice to someone struggling with meals, I would say, SIMPLIFY your meals.  You can make many healthy, from scratch dinners, that don’t cost a whole lot and DO NOT take up all of your day.  Look at food as nutrition for your body, forget the whole picture perfect part of it.  I always wanted to have a variety of snacks for my children and then I realized that they were perfectly happy eating the same snack each day.  So we made things in bulk and froze them.   It is just food and they are just as happy.  Keep meals the same.  If your husband and children enjoy a certain food, make a large pot of it and save yourself some time.  Today I made spaghetti for dinner.  It is a dish that my husband can eat over and over again.  My children enjoy it as well.  But in my mind, I think everyone needs variety, why??  They don’t, so I made a big pot  of sauce and will cook some noodles for dinner today and then tomorrow use the leftover sauce and heat up some more noodles. It is much easier and my life is less complicated.  I have salad material in the refrigerator and will eat that myself.

Keep the basics and go from there.

Keep the ingredients for a meal simple and life will be easier.

For the actual mealtimes………..give up the quietness factor.  Remember the last post about noise??  Dinner time is usually worse.  You are confined to a room and most of the time it echos–smile. For our family, it is impossible to keep the food on the table.  We have such large trays of food and it is much easier to leave it on the buffet and let everyone go cafeteria style to fill up their plates.  We normally pray before we even begin scooping.  Then we scoop out the little ones plates.  We are down to only having to make 4 plates.  We keep it small, children do not need that much food.  We then grab forks and spoons and place it on the plate.  We put theirs on the table and then they can sit and start eating.  The rest of us, gets their own food.  Mom is usually last, and by the time everyone is seated and chowing down, someone needs a refill.  Mom is left to get it and by the time you go to sit down, little ones are finished.  If you can train your little ones to sit and wait, then great—but in the land of real, little ones are best to get down and go play.  Then the quietness can occur.  I try and keep a rag right at the table with me, to wipe hands up right away.  I can usually continue eating, as they trail off away from the table.

Drinks—–drinks are something I do not like to worry about at meal time.  We have water bottles and I have all the little ones get their own water bottle from the refrigerator.  I never enjoy refilling a million little cups, each child gets their own.  Usually the 2 year old, enjoys getting them for everyone.

When they were really little, I had to start cleaning up the table right away, as they would sometimes climb back up and start making a mess again.  I just resorted to not eating during meal time.  I gave them food, cleaned them up, and started cleaning up the meal.  It was easier to watch them play and grab a quick bite myself.

Speaking of quick bites,  another thing you learn to do in a large family is to eat FAST!!  For myself, it was out of necessity.  The only way to get my food in me, was to eat quickly.  I can say that now, I can usually sit most of the meal and enjoy my food.  I prefer to eat quickly and start cleaning up right away but if I wanted to sit and socialize, I could.

I have found that clean up can take just as long as preparing the meal when you have a large family.  This is sometimes the hardest part of the meal.  I know especially when I prepare a large, special dinner I spend much time making it and it seems they eat so quickly and then I begin with taking forever to clean it up  I have learned to simplify that.  Over the years, I grew tired of washing so many plates, so for big get togethers or for holidays when I have been cooking all day, I pull out the paper plates.  Yes completely informal, but it saves on having to spend all of my time in the kitchen.  This works well when we have other families visit with us.  No one wants to spend time washing dishes, paper plates work great to avoid this.

Also learn to use only one bowl or plate to put all the food into. If at all possibly, skip using multiple dishes, it only leads to more dishwashing.   I have eliminated cups from the meals by having them use bottles.  Less is best. Hmmmm my next step might be to buy some sporks.  The fork and spoon in one, another time saver.  I am going to look into that.  smile.

Another big waste of time is the amount of serving bowls you use.  I try to wash dishes as I go when preparing meals.  Even if that means washing a few big pots before we sit down to eat.  It saves on much washing afterwards.

Another huge time saver, especially when we have much food at holidays is to use disposable foil pans.  It is much easier to throw away a pan then try and scrub it off.  I don’t recommend it for everyday use, but for a few special meals each year, save yourself some sanity.

Keep everything in one central location and let everyone grab their own stuff.  That includes any napkins, silverware, and salt and pepper.  I loved when I had a container and put all of our forks and spoons in it and left it right on the buffet.  We ate 3 times a day, why waste time putting away something that you constantly used.  Unfortunately it got broken when moving here, I will have to find another.   Simplify.  Use less, always better.

Cooking for a large family is not that much harder than cooking for a small family.  You just use larger amounts of items.  Plus you can usually stretch things more. I know for our family we have started going from 2 boxes of pasta up to 3.  We are sometimes border line and there is sometimes more leftover than others, but it works good for leftovers.  When we make spaghetti sauce, we can usually add a couple of extra cans of tomato sauce and diced tomatoes and it stretches the sauce more.

It isn’t really about making tons of food, just more stretching what you have already.  I know if we are going to have tacos that can get costly, especially if I ONLY used ground beef.  I make up batches of bulgur burger and freeze it and use this to stretch our meat anyways.  I add equal amounts of ground beef and bulgur burger for the meat.  Tastes the same and no one complains.  I also make sure to make up some refried beans–pinto beans ground up in food processor.  I offer this with the meat, to help stretch the protein for everyone.  When we use canned nacho cheese, I add more water to it with some chicken bouillon.  Tastes the same, just a tad more liquidy.

When we use sausage or hotdogs in a dish, I cut them up thinner and it helps stretch the meat.  If we used chunked up ham, I found that if I ground it up in the food processor it stretched it way more.  For soups, if I add more liquid and a thickener like mashed potato flakes, it stretches the soup more.

For chili and dishes with beans, adding a few more cans of beans always stretches the meal without any noticeable difference.

Haystacks are a great dish to make that is inexpensive, but looks like you have a lot of food, plus it tastes great.  Check out Danielles haystacks and Mexican haystack recipe.

When we just had a few children it was cheap enough to eat a bag of chips for snacks, but no more.  We now can chow through a family sized bag of Doritoes in no time.  We have since enjoyed making popcorn and then we sprinkle half a bag in with the popped corn.  This allows the yumminess of Doritoes without all the junk food aspect of it and they fill up more on popcorn.

Another trick that I have learned, especially if I am having a salt craving is to use those popcorn topper flavors and sprinkle it on things.  I like homemade pita chips and I can sprinkle that with ranch powder and it tastes delicious.  We use the popcorn toppers every time we make popcorn.  Inexpensive way to spice it up.

We prepare treats in bulk which is cheaper than buying at the store.  You can make up a huge batch of homemade ice cream or popsicle treats for way less than the cost of a box of popsicles.  Plus the added healthy factor can’t be beat.  You can check out what we enjoy making for frozen treats under our large family food tab.

Having a large family doesn’t always mean that you have to spend more in groceries either.  I think back to when we were first married.  I bought most of our food and would spend $200 on groceries and that was for 4 people!!! We now cook for 11 and I can easily keep our grocery budget under $200.  Most weeks it is around $125-150.

Hopefully I have let you see a little bit into the life of a large family at mealtimes.  It can be crazy, it can be loud.  But, it doesn’t have to be much more work than a smaller family, it doesn’t have to cost as much, and it can bring more smiles cause there is always something going on.  Enjoy…

part 3 laundry

I remember being a new Christian and people telling me that I should pray for  my ears to become open to hear what it was God was speaking to me.  It seems I was taught through many classes and people to just listen to this book or this speaker and I would become stronger in my faith.  So I bought many books and listened to many different speakers.  The books were good and I had a bookshelf full of them.   I learned many truths about the bible and learned how to apply them to my life.  Did you know that they have books about every topic under the sun?  Need to be delivered from a demon? There is a book for that.  Want to be happy?  There is a book for that.  Want to learn self-control?  There is a book for that.  Want a better marriage?  You guessed it, there is a book for that as well.

Now,  I don’t knock the world of books—I wrote my own and think they are beneficial.  But where I think you can go wrong as a Christian is when you place the majority of your time, reading other people’s explanations instead of reading directly from God’s word.

“Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”

Romans 10:17

It doesn’t say that you faith comes by life experiences or by other people’s experiences.  It says that your faith comes by hearing the WORD OF GOD.  That can ONLY come from the bible.

You should be spending SOME time each day, reading God’s word.  It isn’t about how much you read, it is just reading SOME of it.  You can read 1/2 of a chapter and get more out of it then by reading 3-4 chapters of a bible.  The key is to READ  it.  How else are we supposed to grow if we don’t go directly to the source that can provide life unto us?  Sure we can learn lots of truths and practical ways from other people’s books. What is beneficial in these books is sometimes the authors own experience going through these struggles and how they broke free from them and that can be encouraging.  I myself, will share my book of how I overcame some major struggles in my own life.  Number one being “taking offense.”  I think that is a HUGE problem in the Christians life.  I think everyone can be much better off by NOT taking offense at things.  But, you aren’t going to grow much in your relationship with God if you don’t read what it is He is saying to you.  My book will help you get over some fleshy areas, but Gods’ word can do multitudes more than a book written by a human.

By increasing our faith, we can increase the “anointing” that is given by God.  That anointing is what will help us over come things in life.  That is when healings happen, when addictions are freed, when miracles are performed, when God speaks to us and we hear, when prayers get answered, and when finances increase.  Anointing is the Holy Spirit living within us so that we can do the impossible by the power of God.  We can’t do things on our own, it is allowing God to do the work through us.  We are just a tool that God uses.  When we are lined up with Him, he is able to anoint us and use us to do the work here on earth.

Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee

2 Corinthians 1:21-22.

In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE;FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.’ “But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear.…”For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

The bible is clear that many people desire to have God’s truth come to pass. How many of us want God’s promises to happen?  I believe all of us do.  But it is only going to happen, once our faith is strengthened.  We have to have the faith that says when we read’s Gods word it is true.  The problem is we don’t believe any of it can happen.  Our faith is diminished and we start making excuses for why this or that doesn’t work.  We aren’t allowing God to do what He says we will do.  When we read the bible, we start diminishing away the truth by it instead of taking it as fact.

I was reminded of this while I was reading in the book of Romans about sinning.

In Romans 3:23 it was talking of the Law of Moses–which is the past….for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.   It doesn’t say “all sin.”  It says “sinned.”  He is talking of the past.

I stopped there because I have always heard Christians quote this verse frequently.  Especially when someone is sinning in the church.  “Well, we all sin and fall short of the glory of God.”  But if you keep on reading there is so much more to the story.  It is like they use it to excuse away sin.

In verses 6:12 it says:  let not sin reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.  In verse 14 it says: For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace.

If you keep reading in chapter 6 it says : “are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound?  No way!! How can we, who are dead to sin-through death of Jesus, still be dead?  We walk in newness of life.

We are united in death.  United in the resurrection.  Our old self was crucified with Him.  We are no longer enslaved to sin.  If we died with Christ than we believe that we LIVE with him.  Christ’s died, rose from the dead, and will never die again.  Death has NO dominion over Him.  Death he died, he died to sin, once for all, but life he lives, he lives to God.

We must consider ourselves dead to sin and ALIVE to God in Christ Jesus.

We were once slaves of sin (verse 6:17) but NOW are obedient from the heart to His teachings.

6:23 states: Wages of sin is death but free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  We have been set free from being a slave to sin—we are now  slaves of God.

We shouldn’t be slaves to sin anymore.  Then why is it there are so many church going Christians who struggle with bondage to things?  Do they not truly “hear” what it is the bible says—–THAT THEY ARE NO LONGER SLAVES TO SIN.     We ARE NOT in the FLESH but in the SPIRIT.  The SPIRIT of GOD DWELLS inside  of you.    We are HEIRS of CHRIST.  The bible says that if we live according to the flesh, that we will die (Romans 8:13).  But by the SPIRIT you put to DEATH all the deeds of the body then you will LIVE.

The bible is clear that we seek to make for ourselves teaching that is in our eyes good.

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

2 Timothy 4:3-4

Turn to God’s word and learn from His words . Plain and easy.  They are written so that ANYONE can learn from it.

Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear

Mark 4:9

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